The Memorial
by Cairnsy
Summary: For three children unable to forget a war they were born in to, an ageing Memorial becomes a sanctuary.


**The Memorial**

The first time we all met at the Memorial was nothing more than a coincidence. It certainly wasn't rare for people to visit the war Memorials on the anniversary of the day that the war had actually ended. Not rare, but certainly not as obvious as one would think, it seemed. For that day there had only been the 15 of us there, in a Memorial hall that was large enough to hold hundreds. In the 8 years I would visit the shrine, sometimes weekly, others only once a year, there would never be a crowd bigger than that day. 

They say you should never forget. I don't think people believe that applies to the war against Voldemort. Death, destruction, pain. One can only handle so much of it, hold on to it all for so long before it becomes easier to forget, to delude yourself into pretending that nothing actually happened in the first place. There were no lost brothers, dead lovers. You had to move on, and you couldn't do that living in the past. Remembering was too painful, it was easier to forget. And the Wizard Community desperately wants to forget. 

So do I. But as sure as I know that the Chuddly Quidditch team will never win a game, certainly not this season, I know that each time I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, I will see my father staring back at me. To see him in me hurts my mother just as badly as it does me - I wonder if anyone knows how much I curse the thick, golden hair that seems to drive those silly girls crazy, or the supposingly 'smoky grey eyes' that are just a tad too wide. Yet, even if I resembled more a troll than my father, my heart would never let go of him. Battered, bruised - beaten to a pulp on a daily basis, my heart would still guard and protect his memory against everything - be it the apathy of the wizard world, or my own masks. 

I was six when the war ended. Yet, I somehow remember it better than the adults who fought in it. Their denial is something I doubt I will ever understand. 

But it was at 12 when I first came to the Memorial alone. Built in a sobering false marble, fluted columns colonnaded the long hall, cold floors lying beneath a roof that was much like the sky one at Hogwarts, although here the delicate ceiling was always dark and miserable. Clouded by abandonment and desolation, it seemed the ceiling was a direct reflection of the emotions in the room itself. 

I had not expected to see anyone else from school there, had not even spared a single thought that any of my classmates might have suffered some tragedy that equalled my own during the war. I didn't care for their losses, couldn't care for more than the heart wrenching sorrow that was my own. It was a single sorrow that was too overwhelming to deal with in the first place, there was no room for anyone else's. So to see the two people that even then I had despised the most, walk into my sanctuary together? Even now I can't quite place the emotions I felt. 

As a 12 year old, and one who had never been overly observant at that, I could still tell that Oliver and Percy hadn't come together on purpose. Perhaps they had bumped into each other on the way in, or one had enquired where the other was going on what had been a freezing Sunday afternoon. I never asked. Perhaps one day I will. Perhaps not. But on that day at least, their body language screamed of rigidness and an awkward desire to be alone. It is one of the rare times I can recall the two of them ever being uncomfortable in each others presence. Much to the surprise of everyone in our year, those two gravitated towards each other almost instantly. Oliver, popular the moment he stepped into Hogwarts, and the bookworm. No-one could understand why Oliver would want to spend even a moment with Percy, yet we never seemed to question why Percy would want to be around Oliver. At 11 you are superficial and catty - Percy was friends with Oliver because it meant that Percy could almost be popular by association. And yes, it is something *all* of us laugh at now. Their friendship has always run deeper than that. 

It wasn't until I was 16 that I became envious of their relationship. I've always wondered what took me so long. 

That day, it was Oliver who spotted me first out of the pair. Eyes widening in surprise, he whispered something to his companion, who in turn glanced at me, nodding stiffly before leaving Oliver and going to sit around the other side of the monument of the unnamed fallen soldier that we had all gathered around. Oliver spared me one more glance, eyes narrowed in contemplation before he too settled down in a position far from either of us. 

3 children, scattered around an ageing monument. The forgotten, the forsaken. The ones who would never be able to forget, even while their elders did. There were too many nightmares behind each of our eyes, a deadness that we had all been able to see in each other that day, one that no-one else seemed to notice. Cared to notice. Dared to notice. When they had all chosen to forget, they had sacrificed us on their alter of apathy. We were only children - hell, we are still only children. 

We've never been children. 

We didn't speak of that day we had shared in silence back at school, and nothing changed in our attitudes towards each other. Oliver and I remained overly competitive, hating each over with a ferociousness that came from not knowing a single thing about your enemy other than the fact that he *was* your enemy. Percy was as distant and as closed off as usual. Destined to never be friends, we suddenly knew each other far better than any of us had ever wanted to. It might be strange to hear that 12 year olds wear masks and layers of falseness to protect themselves, but it is something I've done as long as I can remember. To learn that others did it, that the fabulously popular Oliver Wood and the overachieving Percy Weasley had just as many masks - if not more, than what I had, was a revelation, although not a welcome one. 

You want your enemies to be as distant from you as possible. To find out that at your very core you share something so ... so *deep*, something you thought that not a single person in the world could ever understand, is unsettling. 

And I think it was because of that strange understanding that the next year we all showed up again. This time, the silence was one that was shared side by side. No words were exchanged, no overly dramatic eye contact. Oliver and Percy - this time their duel entrance had been more deliberate, simply came and sat beside me the moment they entered. I saw no reason for them not to. 

It was the beginning of our 6th year that marked the first changes in our routine. The last person I had expected to find waiting for me when I came out of the showers after a Quidditch practice one day was Percy, especially a Percy who had allowed worry to creep into his normally placid features. Oliver had flipped out, Percy said - of course in far more delicate and friendlier words. Even though Oliver and Percy had grown distant the more Percy had begun to see Penelope, neither could be enticed to say anything resembling a horrible word against the other. Yet, no matter how strong the bond between the two of them was, Percy needed someone for support, and in one of the few times in that prat's life, he was brave enough to ask for it. Somehow, I was the right person to come to - I doubt either of us knew why, but I don't think we will ever believe that we made the wrong decision in first asking, and then accepting. 

It was at the Memorial that we found him. Oliver Wood, powerful Quidditch keeper, quite possibly the most dominant and cheerful person in Hogwarts, was weeping openly and painfully over what would have been his brother's 25th birthday. Should have been, if Adrian Wood hadn't been slaughtered at the hands of the Death Eaters only weeks after having entered the war. The relationship between the three of us changed forever that day - there was no Penelope, competition on the Quidditch field was an immature pastime that, at that moment at least, I had forgotten the relevance of. Instead of the silence that had always dominated our periods at the Memorial, Oliver's harsh cries raked the room, echoing cruelly. 

I suppose it is strange in a way that it was Oliver that was the one to breakdown. People naturally assume that he is emotionally strong, certainly more so than Percy. In all honesty, if it had been Percy sobbing on that hard marble floor, I would hardly have been surprised. But instead it was Oliver, and Percy was the one who was offering the comfort, being far stronger than I - and I believe many others, have ever given him credit for. 

As for myself? I listened. Listened to *his* sorrow, allowing part of it into my heart as I had never done with anything else before. I let Adrian not only live forever in the mind of Oliver, but within myself, with my father, as well. 

I didn't speak of Father, not that day. But several months later, on the tenth anniversary of his death, I calmly invited them both along, more as though I was inviting them out for a drink than to a private mourning party of one. Or three, as it turned out. 

I continued to hate them while at school. And they both had decent enough reason to despise me back as they did. They saw me at my weakest, knew of my own pain in a way that others did not - how could I like them, even if I had wanted to? The Memorial was the only place where we came together in peace, yet it was strangely enough the only place I ever saw Oliver's anger and hatred turned on Percy. Although, if one is to be honest - and honesty is a virtue that I find is much exaggerated, he wasn't the only one that day who had anger in his eyes. 

It was an unspoken rule that our little triad was exactly that - simply the three of us. We are all very private people, to learn to share our grief with each other was hard enough, to try and include someone else in that equation was simply not conceivable. That year, Percy committed the greatest sin possible. He brought along Penelope. 

If it had been anyone else, we would simply have been livid. But Penelope was the proverbial thorn in Oliver's side, the one person who seemed to have the ability to take Percy away from him. Oliver jealous? Of course he was. Percy was the one friend who could see behind his masks, who knew *him*, not the dashingly handsome and together Quidditch player that the rest of the world saw. 

Aside from myself, of course. Yet Oliver and I have never been close to being friends, nor would I claim to know him as well or as deeply as Percy does. I know only of their sorrow, nothing of their joy or hidden dreams. 

I could have told Percy that bringing Penelope to the Memorial was a doomed idea. From the moment she entered what to us had always been a sacred place, she chattered continuously about trivial things, the kind of things we always left at the door. She made him give her a tour, as Oliver and I sat in our normal places, as icily silent as we had been back when we were 12. For his part, Percy alternated between looking uncomfortable and being the brilliantly etched - but always cold, marble statue that he presented to the outside world. 

We hated him, at that moment. More so, when he, with Penelope on his arm, came and sat beside us. If Penelope had been, in Oliver's eyes, worthy of Percy, then perhaps it would have been merely anger and not utter distaste and fury that burned in his eyes. But even I, who never agreed with Oliver on anything if it could be so helped, cringed at the thought of *anyone* having to put up with Penelope Clearwater. There is not a single enemy I have had either in the past or at this precise moment whom I would wish that catty, social climber on. 

Oliver handled it well, considering. Although if Percy had been brave enough to meet his friend's eyes, he would have seen emotions there that had never been seen by someone who wasn't currently on the opposing Quidditch team. But Percy, who could manage to be so brave when it came to the dealings of others hearts, has always been a coward when it came to his own. There was no way he would dare to look at either of us, especially as Penelope sat impatiently at his side, running her hand playfully across his knee. 

She managed to last 20 minutes like that. Considering how fickle the girl is, that was a major accomplishment for her. But after she had spent as long as she felt was necessary, she gave Percy a kiss on the cheek before practically skipping out. 

We sat like that for God knows how long - both Oliver and myself angry, feeling utterly betrayed. Maybe it was because of that that it took so long for either of us to notice that Percy was crying. 

Unlike Oliver, and yes, myself, Percy had never cried on any of our visits. He was the one that *we* occasionally leaned on, but who never used us in return, other than the silent support we all did so well. He had never shared his own war horrors, there was no date that we ever had set aside that was a 'Percy day', even though there were several for myself and Oliver. Occasionally, Percy would quietly tell us he was going to visit the Memorial, and we went along - but there was never a reason, no explanation forth coming. 

So perhaps it was fitting that Percy's tears were silent, unlike the rather loud sobs that Oliver and I were occasionally known for. There was no gushing, no desperation, simply a fine trail of tears that spoke of resignation and heartache. At that moment, we forgot all about Penelope, and the idiocy Percy had shown. I doubt Oliver thought of anything other than his friend as he pulled him into his arms, a reversal of what we had always known from the past. 

Percy has always been a ... physical person. It feels strange to say that about a person who normally shows such reserve in public, and I will never be able to forget the first time he attempted to show me sympathy through a hug. At 15, it had been an awkward experience - there are few people I have ever wanted to hug, and Percy has never been on that list, yet at the time it was exactly what I needed, even though I had no idea until those arms had been wrapped around me. Since then, we have probably embraced half a dozen times - certainly no more. Each time is strange, and always Percy is the instigator. And that has always been true with Oliver as well, except for that one day. 

That day, which would remain the only one I would ever see Percy cry. That day, where I learned more about Percy than in the entire 4 years previous. As Percy cried his silent tears into Oliver's embrace, I began to realise that perhaps what Percy had lost in the war hadn't been physical - that there was no brother or father, but something deep within Percy that he didn't know how to live without, or had stopped him from being able to live in the first place, once it was gone. Perhaps the war had in part destroyed Percy, not simply someone he loved. Perhaps it was Percy that Percy mourned for, be it the childhood that he had never had, or the man he had become as a result of it. 

I'm sure some find it strange that, at 16, I of all people was waning and waxing philosophy, and about Percy Weasley at that. Most people believe that Percy isn't deep enough to wane about in the first place. But as I sat there, offering the comfort of an enemy, this complicated person was all I could think about, and it was then that I allowed a piece of Percy into my heart, to share what was beginning to become a rather cramped place now occupied by Father, Adrian and the newly admitted Percy. Oh, and a bit of Oliver and myself as well. Because, while I will never know what happened to Percy to drive him to such despair - his childhood has always been a taboo subject, one that neither Oliver or myself would dare approaching without Percy giving the say so, and while I doubt that his childhood was anywhere near as normal as the average war child's as a result, Oliver and I lost part of ourselves as well. Perhaps we could never see it hiding behind the more obvious loss of our family members, and in that way, we certainly didn't lose as much as Percy did, but we still did lose parts of ourselves, parts that could have made us completely different people. 

The living deserve to be mourned as much as the dead. And that day, we mourned for *us*. 

Penelope was never invited to the Memorial again after that. 

Today is the first time in 7 years that I have come here alone. It is my first year out of Hogwarts, the second for Oliver and Percy, wherever they may be. For all that we shared, I was never their friends, I don't think there is a word to describe the kind of relationship we had. Whatever it was, we haven't seen each other in a year, haven't kept in touch in any form. Today isn't even one of the days we would have met up for, back when we were at Hogwarts. 

Today, Voldemort is back. And the horror that I knew - that thousands of us knew, is suddenly real and frightening all over again. I thought I'd find some relief here, in my Memorial. Not one of my brightest thoughts, but then, there haven't been many of those, as my old teachers would most likely vouch for. Instead of the tiny trickle that I had always been used to, hundreds flocked the great hall, wailing and offering prayers to whatever Gods they might or might not believe in. It is hard to control my rage - I want to spit on them, tear them apart for defiling my sanctuary. How dare they! After not having mourned in 18 years, after *forgetting* as much as they could, they come here, where those who have *always* mourned come? 

The sanctuary I have always known no longer lies before me, in its place is a cold, heartless room full of people who care only for remembering when having forgot causes the old problems to re-arise. 

"You know, I never liked this place at all - the floor is too hard." Turning around simply confirmed what I thought I had heard, but had trouble believing. After convincing myself that neither of them would be here, they both are. It was Oliver who had spoken, his eyes scanning the room with disdain. Percy simply nodded stiffly in greeting, as he always did. 

"I prefer it less crowded," Percy then added, looking a tad uncomfortable but pursuing on anyway. "It doesn't, doesn't work with them all here." 

Indeed it didn't. With all these people here serving their own purposes, this place that had for so long been mine - been ours, was now powerless. 

"Anyway, you could never buy a good muffin here, unlike a nice cafe I know down the road," Oliver picked up, on what twisted train of thought, I'm not sure. "The three of us should go get something to eat, it is nice and warm there - and their seats have cushions." 

"Penelope is here?" The question is, I know, rather stupid. Firstly, Oliver would never invite Penelope *anywhere*, and even in my dimmest moments I would be able to tell the invitation was being made to me. But, we had never been friends, had never gone out for 'muffins' or 'scones'. The responding look in Oliver's eyes could only be called devilish. 

"Oh, didn't you know? Percy and Penny broke up months ago." He says it so innocently, but the way Percy rolls his eyes at Oliver's answer is enough for me to know that there is a story just waiting to be told. Strangely, it is a story I want to hear. I nod, and for some reason both Percy and Oliver smile because of it. 

"Well grab your coat then! Percy has to be back at the Ministry in a couple of hours, which means he'll be leaving in 20 minutes or so to make sure he isn't late." Oliver easily ducked as Percy swung the briefcase he was holding at Oliver's head, causing the taller boy to chuckle at the 'slow reflexes' of a man who was technically now his superior. As I slip on my coat, I glance back, just once, at the Memorial hall. I've always thought this place was magic, that it managed to soothe me where nothing else could, let me be myself when the real world wouldn't. As I see the people milling there, tears in their eyes and prayers on their lips, begging for their own protection and caring for little else, I realise that it is not the Memorial that is magic, not the Memorial that has let me grieve, and as a result grow. It is the people who allowed me to grieve and grow along side them. 

"Hurry up, Marcus - Percy is getting impatient." 

My companions. 

"Oliver Wood, if you do not be quiet, the whole hall will come storming out, wondering what is wrong." 

My peers. 

"But you would still love me anyway, wouldn't ya, Perce?" 

My friends. We were destined to never get along, to never be close. But what does destiny know, anyway? 

**Fin.**


End file.
